Bush's at about a sixth -grade level. Hard- ing' s isn't smarter or subder; it's just more flowery. They are both empty-headed; both suffer from what Orwell called "slo- venliness." The problem doesn't lie in the length of their sentences or the number of their syllables. It lies in the absence of pre- cision, the paucity of ideas, and the eva- sion of every species of argument. Presidential rhetoric is worth keeping an eye on. But the anti-intellectual Presi- dency is fast expiring. And a rhetorical Presidency begins to look a lot better, after some years of a dumbfounded one. T hree days before his Inauguration, J ames Garfield scrapped his entire first draft and started again. (Actually, he didn't quite scrap it; he filed it. You can read his several drafts at the Library of Congress.) He finished his speech at two- thirty in the morning, just hours before he became President (thereby beating Clin- ton, who put down his pen at 4:30 A.M.). He began, as almost everyone does, with a history lesson: "We can not overesti- mate the fervent love of liberty, the intel- ligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government." The American experiment had been Washington's theme, too. "The preserva- tion of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of gov- ernment," Washington said, are, finally, "staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." John Adams deemed this "an experiment bet- ter adapted to the genius, character, situ- ation, and relations of this nation" than of any other. Jefferson called the American republic "the world's best hope." Antebellum Presidents couldn't very well avoid attempting to explain the rela- tionship between the American experi- ment and the peculiar institution. Van Buren acknowledged the issue of slavery as a source of "discord and disaster"; he there- fore praised the founders' "forbearancè' of it. William Henry Harrison urged the same: "The attempt of those of one State to control the domestic institutions of an- other can only result in feelings of distrust and jealousy, the certain harbingers of dis- union, violence, and civil war, and the ul- timate destruction of our free institutions." Pierce, sworn into office three years after the Compromise of1850, went further: "1 believe that involuntary servitude, as it ex- - f ----- ----- - r '"' e--? C'u rr'-c- -<;1/ '/ /' Ý __ '.._} è5_ _ l( _ 7/;/ -( Jfß :'1\.-7i ( 1 / ? / M::: - ----- .//t'//IVr.. --..... . r=- \ , I' I I//; Ti.. ( .-r L, =r t:::--- .-- - z..----- e:------ .--- "'---... -'" --- S t"I. ß. "I'm lookingfor something that says I have a headache." / l----/1.. ý' ,,--.. t' ./ ::::::! . ists in different States of this Confederacy, is recognized by the Constitution." Lin- coln was the first to state the matter plainly: "One section of our country believes slav- ery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." In his extraordinary second inaugural-it's hard to think of a better speech that he, or anyone, could have given-he asked the Union to forgive the Confederacy: "It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged." Garfield, who wrestled, alone in his study, with man's estimation of man, proved to be the first post-Civil War Pres- ident to achieve anything like Lincoln's ca- pacity for uncompromising argument married to relendess grace. "The elevation of the negro race from slavery to the full rights of citizenship is the most important political change we have known since the adoption of the Constitution," Garfield observed. And then, about the Southern suppression of the black vote, he warned, "T 0 violate the freedom and sanctities of the suffrage is more than an evil. It is a crime which, if persisted in, will destroy the Government itself:" William McKin- ley, in the first inaugural of the twentieth - , :? /(...--- . G e.- r . century, announced, "We are reunited. Sectionalism has disappeared." It had not. It has not. In 1909, a hundred years before Barack Obamàs Inauguration, William Taft was left insisting, because so many Americans still needed reminding, "The negroes are now Americans." There have been a lot of speeches since then, but, as Clinton said in his sec- ond inaugural, "The divide of race has been Americà s constant curse." Obama, in his ambitious March, 2008, speech on race, attempted to lift that curse. "Amer- ica can change-that is the true genius of this nation," he declared. "This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected." Generations ago, James Garfield did his imperfect best. The inaugural he de- livered, on March 4, 1881, didn't match Lincoln's eloquence. But this year it bears rereading: My countrymen, we do not now differ in our judgment concerning the controversies of past generations, and fifty years hence our children will not be divided in their opinions concerning our controversies. They will surely bless their fathers and their fathers' God that the Union was preserved, that slavery was overthrown, and that both races were made equal before the law. We may hasten or we may retard, but we can not prevent, the final reconciliation. Enough said. . THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 12, 2009 53